Why Your Gym Isn't Converting Leads Into Members

Steal our Lead Nurture Toolkit—the exact scripts and follow-up cadence to turn “maybe” into a booked consultation.

Gym owners constantly say they need more leads. The data says otherwise.

The average gym gets 420 leads a year, but only 84 of them ever book an appointment. Fix that gap, and you can add tens of thousands of dollars in revenue without spending another dollar on ads.

Today, Two-Brain CEO John Franklin and founder Chris Cooper share proven tactics gym owners can use to transform their lead nurture process.

John presents a simple four-C framework for lead nurture: Call, Consistency, Calendar and Confirm. He explains how to optimize each of these to ensure more prospects show up at your gym.

Chris shares how he pushes himself to follow up more than feels comfortable, and why availability signals more to a prospect than price does.

The pair also break down real gym examples showing what NOT to do.

Tune in to learn how to turn the leads you already have into more paying members.

Links

Lead Nurture Toolkit

Gym Owners United

Book a Call

0:00 - Why more leads won’t fix your gym’s sales problem

0:56 - The real numbers behind why gyms lose booked appointments

2:37 - Why gym owners chase leads instead of conversations

3:05 - The four-part framework behind every booked appointment

4:19 - Free sales scripts for gym owners

4:37 - Why responding fast changes everything

7:09 - How many times you should actually follow up

8:41 - The calendar mistakes quietly costing you new members

13:37 - Why a text beats an automated confirmation email

17:20 - Putting the whole system together

Transcript

John 0:02

Gym owners constantly tell me they have a leads problem. They don't. They have a lead conversion problem. The average gym is getting about 420 leads a year, but only about 84 of those people ever book an appointment. That means hundreds of people are raising their hands and then they disappear. And that isn't because they're not interested, it's because they weren't followed up with properly. And the good news is you don't need to spend another dollar on advertising if you simply improve how you follow up with your existing leads. Doing so can help you add dozens of new members and tens of thousands of dollars in incremental revenue during the lifetime of that client. Today we're gonna show you the simple four-step framework that makes that happen. I'm John Franklin, the CEO of TwoBrain Business, the world's largest gym mentorship company, working with over 3,000 gym owners to help them hit six figures in profit. And joining me today is TwoBrain's founder, Chris Cooper. In this episode, we're gonna share the simple lead nurture system to help you respond faster, follow up consistently, book more appointments, and turn existing leads into paying members. So let's get into it.

Chris 0:59

John, every gym owner I talk to says, I just need more leads. Why is that not usually the case?

John 1:07

So we have data on this, right? We publish our state of the industry every year with our partners, and we get a C behind the hood of over 7,000 gyms. And we know based off of our state of the industry data, and this is like hard data from actual CRMs or gym management softwares, that the average gym is getting around 420 leads every year. And that's only leading to about 84 sit-downs, so 84 sales conversations. So 20% of the people who raise their hand and say, I'm interested in your gym, actually come in and talk to you about it. From there, let's say you close at about a 60% rate, you're getting 50 members out of those 420 leads. It's not a lot of yield, right? My argument that I like to make is if you did a better job of getting those 420 people to come in and have a conversation with you, it could have a fundamental difference in your business. Let's say if we can take that number from 20 to 30 percent, what does that do? That 420 leads generates 126 sit-downs, right? So that's uh 42 more than you otherwise would have had with poor lead nurture. And what does that lead to? An additional 25 extra members if you're running a similar close rate. That's $50,000 a year in incremental revenue if we assume that the average lifetime value of somebody that comes through uh a gym listening to this is $2,000. And if you're a two-brain gym, your lifetime value is probably a lot higher.

Chris 2:40

One of the reasons that people tend to chase more leads instead of having more conversations is there's no fear of rejection. So we're actually avoiding the conversation, maybe subconsciously, because we don't have to make eye contact with Facebook ads manager. We can just run another ad. But the reality is that if you really want to change people's lives, you have to make that eye contact, shake that hand, have that actual conversation. So, John, if if I want to make another $50,000 from the same number of leads that I currently have, what do I have to do?

John 3:08

We got four C's for that. That's our framework. The four C's. And the first C is call. We want to be fast. A first touch with less than five minutes. Ideally, I understand that isn't something that's attainable for most gym owners, and we'll talk about how to deal with that next. We want to be consistent. So we want to continue to follow up with leads for at least three days in a row. Most people uh don't call their leads a second time, some people don't call their leads ever. The third piece is just calendar availability, making sure that the next step is obvious and easy to take. I can't tell you how many times I've been on a gym calendar being like, schedule a no-sweat intro. And the only options are between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on a Tuesday. And finally, confirmation. When someone actually takes the action to book, they're in a very vulnerable state. And they're a huge flight risk. So there are things that you can do to ensure that even after they book the appointment, they actually show up to it.

Chris 4:07

Okay. So the first C is call and I'm busy, I'm coaching. I'll call them back at 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. when I'm done coaching. Well, that's a problem.

John 4:16

And if that's you, you're getting in the way of your business's growth. The faster you are to respond to a lead, the more likely you are to connect with them and book with them. This is the second of a four-part series all about gym sales. So if you want the exact frameworks and scripts we're talking about in this episode, along with other assets to help you convert more of your prospects at your gym, I want you to scan the QR code here or click the link down below to grab it. So if you look down at my visual here, uh there's been a commonly cited study in sales circles. It analyzed 100,000 call attempts. And if you got on the horn with a lead within the first hour they came in versus the next day, you're 60 times more likely to book that lead in, which is interesting because if you look at our state of the industry data, less than 50% of gyms contact a lead within the first three hours they come in. And 15% of gym owners don't contact their leads at all.

Chris 5:13

I remember when I was working for a woman named Karen Hasty and the phone rang as we were talking and I didn't run to get it. And she said, Chris, that's a $10,000 call. Every time that phone rings, it's somebody reaching out for help. And if you're not willing to help them, either they're gonna go without help or they're gonna call somebody else for help.

John 5:32

And I have a little nugget for 2026. A lot of people are um saying, please don't pick up anymore. Or like my phone goes to spam. One thing that I recommend doing is rather than just picking up the phone immediately and calling, shoot out a little text and say, Hey, it's Chris from Catalyst. So that way when you call immediately after, the call ID says maybe Chris instead of maybe spam. That's right.

Chris 5:57

So the thing to remember here is that people don't just reach out when they're bored or they have a free minute. They reach out when they're in pain. They're in the water, their arms are flowing over their head, they're struggling. Maybe it's 10 PM and they, you know, they've just finished the ice cream and they've just binge watched something on Netflix and they don't like themselves. The farther you get from that moment of pain, the less likely they are to still be in that state. And you want to help them right when they need help, and that's usually the second they're calling.

John 6:25

Earlier this year, we made you do a video called the One Hour Marketing Audit, where you actually went through a worksheet and tried to assess your uh response time.

Chris 6:35

I think I still have the bruise from smacking my head so many times. But how did it go? It didn't go great, but it what it did for me was give me two seconds of rage. And then immediately I saw lots of opportunities to fix my gym. And after shooting that video, I went back and fixed some of them and dramatically improved my marketing again.

John 6:54

And which, by the way, if you want to do this audit for your gym, we'll link to the episode right up here. So, at a minimum to test this, if you've delegated your sales process, you want to you want to secret shop or have one of your friends secret shop to see how long it actually takes to get a response once you fill out a form. If you are the person doing it, you're probably a little closer to home there. Let's move on to the second piece, which is consistency. Can you tell me how frequently you are following up with leads at Catalyst?

Chris 7:23

Well, I'm really comfortable following up with them about twice, but I forced myself to do it at least a half a dozen times because I feel like I'm giving this person one more chance. And you never know when you're gonna break through because you don't know what's going on in that other person's life. When they don't respond right away, your brain jumps to they don't want to talk to me, they think I'm spamming them. But the reality is maybe they went to the bathroom. And so you have to give yourself a few opportunities to actually talk to the person. And I've never had a person pick up and say, Stop calling me and slam the phone down.

John 7:54

So a great starting point for most gyms is just one call and text a day for three days. And you don't need to be like, hey, it's Steve, hey, it's Steve, hey, it's Steve. Maybe on the second day you follow up with some piece of valuable information, like a testimonial or something like that. And then on the third day, just like try and one more time, I'll leave you alone after this. And then uh from there, the only time you follow up is when you have something important to say. Hey, we're doing our pickleball outing. Hey, we got this special going on right now. Hey, we're about to launch a new transformation challenge. And just leave it from there. But the important thing to your point, Chris, is to continue to keep the conversation alive during that hot period, which we consider to be those first 72 hours they come into your orbit.

Chris 8:38

Maintain that connection. And then when they are ready, you will be right there waiting with your handout already. So the third C is calendar. I've screwed this up a dozen ways, but I want to hear your stories about the mistakes that gyms make with their calendar page.

John 8:51

So you and I come from the world of CrossFit, uh, which is notorious for adding unnecessary sales friction to the front of a gym membership sale. And I've done this every single wrong way possible. Yep. The worst uh offender was when I used to do uh mandatory classes that were from 4 to 6 p.m. on a Sunday and a Saturday because it was the only time that was convenient to my schedule to require people to come in to do a regular membership. So you'd have to buy these classes that destroyed your entire weekend for $250 before buying a $250 membership. Another terrible way to do it is uh only having calendar availability when it's convenient for you. So, Chris, what are the most popular class times at Catalyst? 6 30, 7 30, and 6 30 p.m. So that's when you should be offering calendar availability to do calls. Uh, we've seen that the morning blocks are less popular that before work stuff, but you definitely want to have like a mid-morning and you definitely want to have evening and one block on Saturday in the morning time when your most popular classes are. If you're still someone who's doing all the coaching, that's a problem.

Chris 10:03

Yeah. You want to be available when your customers are available. You're in the service industry, and a lesson that I learned way back in 2000 was that you're better off to be open from 5 p.m. till 9 p.m. than to be open nine to five during the day when nobody can come.

John 10:17

No, exactly. Let me prove this. So we actually, before the episode, went and looked for a gym in a specific city, and we pulled up an actual calendar and we just anonymized it. So these are the uh appointment times of that gym. We just didn't call them out. So they had the only availability they had was on Thursday, July 16th, and your options were 10 45 a.m., 11 a.m. or 1115 a.m. I'm moving on. Yeah, I work a nine to five job. Like, I don't know if I can go into the gym to talk about my goal. Like, I don't want to take a half day to do that.

Chris 10:55

Yeah. I have a lot of professional clients. They're not going to cancel an appointment with their clients to drive up to come to my gym when really I'm saying I'm here to serve you and help you change your lifestyle. I should be available to meet them before work or after work or on their lunch break.

John 11:10

Well, maybe you're thinking, okay, this guy's coaching all the classes. Maybe I'll go on the weekend. We pulled up Saturday, no availability on Saturday, no availability on Sunday. Now, I feel for these gym owners who are coaching every single class, I lived it, you lived it, you coached thousands of gym owners through this. What do you recommend a gym owner do if they're on the floor all the time and just like simply don't have hours available to sell people?

Chris 11:36

Well, the first thing that you want to do is buy back some of that time so that you do have time to sell people. The second thing that you want to do if you're in an area that has lots of walk ins is have a QR code at the front desk. Sorry, we missed you. Please sign our guest book. Boom, here it is. And we actually used to have like a physical guest book that people would write their name and phone number in, and I would call them right after class. The third thing is that if you've got a time like noon, for example, or 5 to 6 p.m., you're actually better to bring a backup in because that's going to be a busy class, but you can also extract yourself from that class and go talk to somebody or have an NSI booked.

John 12:11

So basically have a roaming coach on the floor or spend, you know, 30 bucks to have somebody coach one class a week that's during your peak time because it's probably costing you more than the $150 a week it would cost you to sub that class out.

Chris 12:27

Yeah. And also you're probably more likely to close a sale if the person comes in during a busy class time. Nothing really draws a crowd like a crowd does, and you've got a room full of social proof standing right there in front of them. You know, for example, if if I only have noon hours available to work out and I'm a busy professional and I can't book an appointment to talk to you at the noon hour, I'm immediately going to think, okay, I can't work out at noon hours anyway. I'm going to move on to a trainer who can. Like for busy professionals, high earning who are your target market, schedule is more important than the money a lot of the times. And that's why some will do personal training, but that's why when they're shopping, your availability up front is a key indicator of how well they're actually going to be able to use your service.

John 13:08

So if you're a gym owner listening to this, your homework is simple. Think about your target prospect. If you serve busy adults, it's probably someone like me. I work a nine to five, I have three kids. I can't get away from work to go do a 30, 45 minute consultation and talk about my goals. Um, so look at your schedule. Do you have a time that would be convenient for me? Someone who would give you money for personal training or small group training? If not, what can you do to free up the time so you're no longer the bottleneck in your sales process?

Chris 13:40

So the last C is confirm. And you know, Kilo sends out an automated email when somebody books an appointment. Why is this a C? Like, why do I have to keep following up with people in person?

John 13:50

So, yes, I do sell marketing automation software, but I am the person banging the drum the loudest that you should not be using it to confirm your appointments. People are vulnerable at this stage in the process. They're scared, they're in pain. They just booked something that is um very, very scary for them, coming into a gym for the first time. And if your gym is a warehouse style gym and you don't have like a dedicated consultation area, or if you're someone who's busy and you run the risk of a prospect walking in the middle of class with nobody to greet them, uh, they're gonna have a terrible first impression of your business. So that period from when they book to when they come in, you want to make them feel as comfortable as possible. First thing you should do is do a confirmation video text. This is something as simple as like, hey, Chris, saw that you booked, so excited. You're gonna be meeting with me. Just wanted to show you around the gym here. Um, yada, yada, yada. Then the day of, hey, Chris, excited to see you at 10 a.m. today. Uh, I'm gonna be coaching class. If you come in a little early, I just want you to sit here. Uh, don't worry, I'll be done and get to you right away. But I just wanted you to put a name to the face. Don't worry about wearing workout clothes. I'll have a water ready for you. Don't bring a water bottle or anything like that. Looking forward to talking about your goals.

Chris 15:09

The biggest fear that people have in life is the fear of being embarrassed. And if they're walking into a gym, they don't know what's going on, they don't know who they're looking for, they don't know what they're supposed to do. It feels like walking into the lunchroom on the first day of high school and knowing no one. Like it's terrifying. And so the more you can reduce that pain by saying, here's exactly what's going to happen. Here's what I look like. I will meet you here. Take off your shoes and put them there. I'll have water for you. Don't worry about what you wear. The more you're holding their hand and coaching them into the gym already. And that makes a massive difference.

John 15:42

I went and did a workout last week at a new place. So filled out the form, nobody responded. Showed up. There's construction going on at the front of this facility. So the front door isn't available. I see somebody in the parking lot and just say, Hey, how's it going? Uh, how do I get in here for the XYZ? And they're like, Oh, just walk this way. And I'm walking with them. They're not particularly friendly or answering any of my questions. And so I walk around, there's somebody uh coaching the class, and I'm like, Hey, I'm here to try out the yada yada. I filled out the form. I didn't hear from anybody. I just showed up. Are you the coach? And this person was like, no, that guy's the coach, and pointed at the person I was walking in with. And more often than not, that is the experience most people have, and they don't understand why they uh are having trouble growing their member base.

Chris 16:34

I I think everybody watching this can relate to being nervous in a crowd of people you've never met before. Maybe you're meeting your girlfriend's family for the first time. Even last weekend, I'm 50 years old. I race bikes. I coach half of the people that were going out on this bike ride. And I showed up at a new place where I'd never been with people I'd never met. And I had to be like, Chris, are you actually nervous about this? And then kind of work through that. Most of your clients are just not going to do that for a service for which they're going to pay you.

John 17:02

If you're a gym owner listening to this, your homework's simple. What I want you to do is instead of sending generic confirmation emails for your no-sweat intros, send two video messages instead. I gave you examples earlier, but just this simple change, I guarantee your show rate is going to increase.

Chris 17:19

So there's your four C's: call, consistency, calendar, confirm. I think it's worth a reminder here that all these things are free and they all multiply the value of whatever ads or whatever other marketing you're putting out there because it'll make those things way more effective.

John 17:33

And that's a wrap. But if you want to see an example of great lead nurture and you want to grow your gym, I recommend scanning this QR code and booking a call with someone on the Two Brain team.